A dead whale in Southern California refuses to float out to sea

The carcass of Wally the whale
(Image credit: Frederic J. Brown/Getty Images)

A whale carcass is persistently floating ashore in Southern California this week. Orange County lifeguards have had to tow the dead whale out to sea at least four times, only to have if drift back to the beach yet again.

The corpse is believed to belong to a 45-foot female humpback whale named Wally, who before her death was the star of several viral videos, including one filmed by a drone in which she is seen shooting a rainbow from her blowhole.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.